Then my eyes were caught by a blond young giant who advanced as Corole spoke.
“Jim Gainsay,” she murmured casually over her creamy brown shoulder as she offered Maida a cocktail.
He said something or other to me politely but I saw his keen eyes go to Maida and linger there as if unable to take themselves away, while I quite deliberately took stock of this tall young fellow with bronzed hands and face who built bridges here and there over the world and looked as if he hadn’t more than got out of university. In fact, a fraternity crest gleamed on the surface of the thin, white-gold cigarette case that he held open in one hand as if the sight of Maida had frozen him in the very act of drawing out a cigarette. On closer observation, however, I was obliged to revise my hasty estimate. There were wrinkles about his eyes; his suntanned eyebrows were a straight, inscrutable line almost meeting over his nose; his jaw was lean and rather ruthless; his smooth-fitting Tuxedo disclosed lines that were muscular, without an ounce of superfluous flesh. Here was a man accustomed to dealing with other men; yes, and of shaping them to suit his own ends, or I was no judge of character.
And just then Huldah, Corole’s one maid, announced dinner somewhat breathlessly as if she must fly back to the kitchen, and we all took our places around the long, candle-lit table.
The soup was bad and the fish poorly seasoned, but the Virginia-baked ham was delicious and I found myself warming to the soft, wavering lights, the gleam of silver and glass and flowers, the white and black contrasts presented by the men setting off Maida’s red-and-white beauty and Corole’s rather blatant charm. Corole had charm, in spite of my questionable adjective—charm of a sort rather flagrant and too warm, but still it was difficult not to fall a little under its sway. She sat at the foot of the table with Jim Gainsay on one side and Dr. Hajek on the other. Her hair was arranged in flat, metallic, gold waves and she wore a strange gown of gold sequins with gleams of green showing through. It clung smoothly to her and was extremely low in the back, showing Corole’s brownish skin almost to the waist, and I could not help speculating on the probable reaction of our board of directors to such a gown worn by our head doctor’s housekeeper. Corole was a cousin of Dr. Letheny’s and had kept house for him since the death of old Madame Letheny. We knew little of her history and I should have liked to know more, though I am not inquisitive. I often wondered what circumstances produced the brown-skinned, gold-haired Corole we knew. She was a great deal like a luxuriant Persian cat; she even had topaz eyes and a peculiarly lazy grace.
The conversation during the dinner was rather languid. Corole did not seem much concerned about the dinner, but she was a little abstracted, though automatically, if one-sidedly, flirting with Jim Gainsay, who had eyes for no one but Maida. That was very clear to me, though none of the others seemed to notice it—with the possible exception of Dr. Letheny, who saw everything through the perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke that almost obscured his narrow, dark eyes. Dr. Balman was frankly absorbed in dinner and admitted that he had been interested in a laboratory experiment and had not eaten during the day.
“But you left it to come to my dinner,” smiled Corole.
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Balman flatly, without looking up from his salad. “I had finished anyhow.”
“Oh,” said Corole, and Dr. Letheny’s thin mouth curved the least bit.
“So you have been bridge-building in Uruguay?” I addressed Jim Gainsay. He turned his keen eyes steadily toward me.
“Yes.”
“I suppose Uruguay is now prosperous, European, and civilized?” I went on, hoping to get him started telling of some of the adventures that must have befallen him. I have an explorer’s instincts and stay-at-home habits, so have to get my travels by proxy.
“Yes. Though the remoter portions are still, in some respects, the Banda Oriental.”
“The Banda Oriental?” said Corole blankly.
“The Purple Land that England lost,” said Maida softly, and Gainsay’s eyes met hers with quick interest—interest and something more.
Corole’s eyelids flickered.
“Serve coffee in the Doctor’s study, Huldah,” she said. “And open the windows.”
The night had turned unbelievably sultry while we sat at the table, so hot that the very breath of the tapers seemed unbearable and we all felt relieved, I think, to leave the table and dispose ourselves comfortably in the great, cushioned chairs and divans in Dr. Letheny’s study. The one lamp on the table was enough, though it left the room for the most part in shadow—rather uncanny green shadow, for the lamp was shaded with green silk and fringe. The windows had been flung to the top but there was not a breeze stirring, even here on the windward side of the hill, and it was so quiet that we could hear the katydids and crickets down in the orchard, and the faint strains of radio music from the open windows of the hospital, whose lights gleamed dully through the trees.
“Radio in a hospital?” queried Jim Gainsay amusedly.
“Lord, yes!” Dr. Letheny’s voice was edgy. “You have been out of the world a long time, Jim, not to know that a fashionable hospital must have all
